Adler goes to boot camp

Just so Martin can't claim his customary first post, I thought I would beat him to the punch. But maybe Adler should go to a boot camp sponsored by the VFW or American Legion. It was his bill they vehemently opposed which would end the requirement that schools tech students the meanings behind Veterans Day and Memorial Day. Way to backhand the men and women who fought to give you the ability to run for elected office, John. In this case, if you ignore them, they will not go away. And this ensures all of the legitimate Veterans groups will stand tall behind Saxton.

Didn't hear about that one. As an Italian-American, I would be interested in learning more.

First, the Camden County Republican organization is so inept that they have nominated a radical right-wing conservative in Joseph Adolf as their candidate for state senate. How many more elections must Republicans lose before they realize that Bush Republicans don't win in Camden County and the increasingly Democratic Southern tier of the state?

Sen. Adler has been having several fundraisers with high profile Democrats and done lots of networking besides the AFSCME/New House PAC forum. He is pushing himself into a top tier candidate and has caught the attention of Pelosi and many of the other high-ranking Democrats in the House and elsewhere. To hear the criticism from conservatives that Adler shouldn't have sponsored a bill that didn't mandate teaching specific holidays is a bit, well, hypocritical; this is the same political philosophy that supposedly espouses local and state control rather than forced mandates from the government, but so much for consistency.

Adler is someone whose work has been called by Steven Goldstein of Garden State Equality the best out of any legislator he's worked with. Adler has received the most votes out of any state senator in N.J. history and has been named one of the ten best legislators in the state by N.J. Magazine. He has made working conditions better for N.J. employees by co-sponsoring a smoking ban, his work on the environment is apparent in the Highlands Bill and Pinelands protection acts, respectively, and his ethics reform bill banned dual officeholding. It is little wonder that, with each state election, Adler garners multiple endorsements from multiple organizations, as he is a superior politician.

Going after Saxton aggressively, especially since he has the SCHIP no-vote albatross around his neck, is the right thing to do, especially for a district that is trending more-and-more Democratic. As long as the DCCC supports Adler financially (and it has over 20 million in the bank compared to 1-2 million for its Republican counterpart), then I expect this race to be competitive.

You know the oc is getting desperate when he makes personal attacks on public educators in his posts and reiterates his anti-education views. Teachers are arguably the lowest-paid and most important workers in our society, but some right-wingers instead only attack public education.

I'm going to tell you something that may shake up your worldview: This district, this state and this country is trending Demcoratic. This means that traditional strongholds like district 3 are competitive, especially when the challenger is as formidable as Adler; consider that Lt. Comm. Sexton received no funding from the state Dems yet nearly cut Conaway's losing margin in half and got the endorsement of papers such as The OC Observer; the Sexton race is a much better barometer than Bass Levin for gauging this district's loyalties.

Though the 3rd isn't as liberal as my district, it is indeed changing, and most voters probably don't share your pro-war, anti-gay viewpoints. I say let Saxton's record be known to the voters, whether it is his unconscionable vote against children's health insurance, his unquestioning support of Bush's failed policies in Iraq, his fundamentalist, conservative positions on stem cells and abortion rights, and then let the voters sort it out.

You see, that's the problem with Martin's posts. They don't deal with facts -- they deal with his very liberal view of how he thinks things are (or should be). Facts just get in the way.

Adler's opponent is a right-wing Bush conservative because Martin thinks that. Teacher's are among the worst-paid because Martin thinks that. Conservatives are hypocritical because they defend teaching about holidays like Memorial Day, Veterans Day and Thanksgiving Day even though it is a state standard (which, BTW Martin, is the way public education works in this state, which you should know). And people who are pro-life and don't necessarily favor using tax dollars to pay for abortions or using embryos for research are conservative fundamentalists!! Do your homework, there are lots of Dems (and liberals) who are pro-life (or marginally so).

What it comes down to with left-wing zealots like Martin is always the same thing: Abortion, gays, guns, and the Iraq war. Then, they play the class warfare (with tax cuts) and/or race (affirmative action, maybe CHIP funding?) and/or senior citizen cards (Social Security, Medicare) by which they scare people into thinking Republicans are mean, out-of-touch, crazy right-wing bigots!

These, of course, are the types of people who get drawn into politics as operatives, campaign managers and political aides. Although he is not one of these (to my knowledge, he is a teacher, which is even scarier!), Martin and those like him could have a very bright future in political hacks and spinmeisters. Just read the replies to come and see for yourself!

The defense of Adler and the whole GS Equality item is a joke! Give me some of what you're spokin, Marty!

Strangely, in the numbers that the oc mentions she or he refuses to acknowledge tangible gains made by Democrats in BurlCo, from Moorestown to Evesham to Mt. Laurel to Kotch and more. The number of voters registered to a particular party isn't the strongest barometer of county trends, especially with the minute fluctuations she/he quoted. We're talking about the swing county of the state here and one that has gone for Kerry, Corzine, and Menendez in recent elections and one where, partly because of widespread corruption, Republicans are facing competitive races in places like the 8th district.

The voter discontent that the oc mentioned is not discontent against Democrats, who lead Republicans, usually by double digits, in every poll cited on polling report (there's your facts!), but against the Iraq War policy overall and the Democrats inability to have enough votes to end the war. I have yet to see any projection of House or Senate gains by Republicans for 2008 (that is, perhaps in except in your "Mission Accomplished" universe), only losses.

The rant against public education is wrongheaded and reveals some bizarre sentiment against public educators, the backbone of this country. I can assure you that most educators are not well off by any stretch of the imagination, and most make wages well below that of many private and public sector jobs.

For jkasko, I would gently suggest to him that not many other Americans think like he and Rick Santorum do: that is, that the earth was created in seven days and that humans have no genetic relation to apes or other related species. No Republican could be elected in this state with his anti-choice, anti-stem cell views, and the only ones who stand a chance have views like Whitman or Kean Jr.

"Class warfare" (surely, your thinking isn't this simplistic) and the SCHIP bill -- from what I gather in his abstract ramblings -- are the benchmarks of liberalism, but I didn't know that cutting of a successful health care program geared towards children, government funded or not, was part of the right wing's platform. Again, as I told the oc, once the Iraq War, children's health care funding, stem cell funding and other such issues are brought to the public forefront, and Saxton is rightfully connected to a president with an 19% approval rating in the state, this race between Saxton and Adler should be competitive.

What is it like, the oc and jkasko, knowing that you're in a state where a) Democrats attack your territory, yet your Party makes no gains b) There is no chance that Republicans can gain any Democratic house seats in the state, but Republicans are targets and it is only a matter of time before some fall and c) That the Republican Party will only lose seats in the upcoming state election, as well as lose the governor's race and the senate race? It must be disheartening, to say the least.

Though the pseudonymous poster the oc may think that everything is swell in GOP land, evidence to the contrary far outweighs evidence otherwise, despite her/his protestations. I would also mention that the author's ethos was seriously damaged when s/he first said that WMDs were found in Iraq and that Martha Bark and Tom DeLay were both innocent of corruption charges.

Now to the evidence. If one is gauging the Gore-Bush 2000 results in Ocean County to Kerry-Bush 2004, certainly Bush made gains there. There was a seismic shift after 2000 on the national level for Republicans in Ocean County, and it became one of the last bastions for Republicans in central-south Jersey. I'm gauging Ocean County vote totals based on this post-2000 shift, where Corzine did better than expected; according to Ocean County Politics, Corzine was exceeding expecations there. On the local level, OC has been controlled by Republicans and Boss Gilmore for quite some time, and Dems won council seats in Pt. Pleasant (2004) and South Toms River (2006) that they hadn't done in some time; additionally, Dems may have their first genuinely elected Dem mayor in Toms River this election, and Sexton made some gains there over Conaway (28% losing margin in district 3 overall to 17% for Sexton).

BurlCo, again using the Gore to Kerry shift, did have Republican gains there, but the county itself has been controlled by Republicans for eons; Bader may win freeholder, Dems may do well in district 8 (again, Dems invade Repubs territory, not vice versa), and local seats (Moorestown, Mt. Laurel, Evesham) have shifted to Democrats in recent elections. The Burlington County Times writes of the Eveshame coup: "“The win for the Democrats, which gives them control of the most populous town in the county, comes on the heels of impressive Democratic gains made in the last few years in Mount Laurel and Moorestown. Democrats also scored a rare victory in last year's race for county surrogate, the first successful bid for a county government office by a Democrat in two decades.” Pray tell, the oc, can you please let me know of blue seats in BurlCo that have gone red in the past two years? Of course, Menendez made gains over Corzine's win in BurlCo by nearly 2,000 votes, but this margin is neglible, as is the small shift in voter registration by party in recent years.

As far as district 3, Wally reported that Bush only won this with a 51% vote in 2004, but I can't independently confirm this. With good funding from the national Dems, who are already going after the feckless Saxton over his unjustified vote against SCHIP funding, Adler has a very good chance in this district.

Regarding national polls, according to Strategic Vision (July 2007), Bush has an 18% approval in N.J.; all that a good candidate needs to do is connect Saxton's policies to Bush's, and the popularity of the incumbent inevitability goes downward. Surely, even someone as myopic as the oc isn't going to refuse that Bush's approval ratings are dreadful and some of the lowest in modern history for any president. And with congressional polls for 2008, Democrats currently hold a 12-point advantage over Republicans, according to the latest Hart/Newhouse Congressional poll. According to this and other polls, there goes the theory that the electorate will be supporting Republicans in 2008!

Again, the oc refuses to criticize his own party, let alone Boss Paulsen, yet has the gall to suggest I'm a party hack. We don't even know what district s/he lives in, let alone what town. It should be enjoyable to watch whether her/his prognostications -- again s/he said that Sherwood would win re-election in Pa, and we know what happened there -- continue to hold true or whether, and this seems more likely, Dems continue to make gains on the state and national level.